Synthesis of Thiazole-Fused Diosgenin Derivatives as Potential Therapeutic Agents

Diosgenin, a hydrolyzed product of phytosteroid saponin, has widely been studied for its medicinal properties. In an effort to find bioactive molecules, 25 novel thiazole-fused diosgenin molecules have been synthesized by an efficient reaction protocol. The chemistry involves the Oppenauer oxidation followed by double bond isomerization in a one-pot reaction, epoxidation, and the reaction of urea derivatives with the epoxyketone to synthesize the target compounds. These novel chimeric compounds were tested for their potential antimicrobial and cytotoxic properties. Antimicrobial studies against a panel of Gram-positive and Gram-negative led to the discovery of some of these molecules as narrow-spectrum antimicrobial agents against Bacillus subtilis bacteria. In preliminary cytotoxicity studies, 2-fluorophenyl derivative (10) inhibited the growth of several cell lines of the NCI-60 cell line panels including >93 % inhibition of UO-31 cell line. Furthermore, the hit antibacterial compounds are non-toxic to human cancer cell lines, and the cytotoxic compound is not active against the bacterial strains, showing the selective therapeutic potential of the chimeric compounds.